The next night went similar to the previous one and Iago was glad to see his room taking shape. All the furniture was repaired and put in place. The walls and ceiling were cleaned up, carpet taken out for dusting off so that it had regained remnants of colour. He could finally walk on it barefoot without worrying to have his feet cut to pieces by shards and who knows what else.

It was a wonderful feeling to have your own place, especially one you prepared yourself.

That reminded him of the person he shared this place with and turned to see Scorpius curled up in his bed on the bookcase. Iago walked closer to it and admired the adorable animal sleeping soundly within the folds of cloth. Who could ever think that this little mammal could change shape and snap a man’s neck faster than he could raise a hand to resist?

The world was a marvellous place, and Iago was lucky enough to have made a friend of this dangerous person. He considered that, wondering whether he could really attribute the word dangerous to Scorpius. As far as he’d seen, the man was quiet, easy to get along with and against violence, judging by how he’d never attacked them no matter how hungry he was.

It was somewhat disconcerting but he hoped that the nosferatu will grow out of that. This world required killer instincts, being ready to fight for your life at any moment, and that wasn’t true only after the Scourge. Life had always been this way in a land ruled by shapers.

Well, Scorpius will have to learn if he wanted to survive. And one of the lessons should be about sleeping with such carelessness. Iago had walked right up to him and there was no sign of any disturbance in the resting animal. It was sleeping and that was all.

He could have woken him up and explained it, but it would have been a pointless feat. People didn’t learn by words. Life itself had to teach such lessons for them to be understood.

For a moment, he tried to remember when had his breaking point been but nothing came to mind. So many memories, so many events that had nothing to do with each other. How was one to know which had been the one that mattered the most? All of them had done their best to push him over the edge.

The sun glared in his eyes, stopping the wandering thoughts and Iago turned away to walk down the stairs. It was morning and people would be craving for him to shape the food to normal. An easy task if one didn’t consider what that meant to his body.

He flexed his muscles and they were doing fine. So far so good then, the damage suffered by the body was healing up in time for now. Probably he could be doing even more, help repair some houses or shape some tools. It would be easy but what would be the point?

People passed him in a scurry, not one of them daring to meet his eyes as they made a wide circle around his person. That was to be expected, he was a known shaper, after all.

What a disgusting distinction. All his life he had despised those people with a single exception and now he was one of them. It would have been hilarious had he not lost all that mattered for obtaining this power. Not that he wanted it, why had Kallum decided he deserved to survive?

It was a question he was never going to receive an answer for. The man had died along with the rest of the world. He hoped that he was happy in his last moments, but that was a doubtful prospect. Who would die happy knowing he just destroyed the world?

Then again, what did it matter? Dead was dead. It mattered not with what beliefs people left, they were gone and that was the only important part.

“Oh, you’re early today!” a cheerful voice called over and Iago looked up to see Urri, the cook waving at him from the doorway to the canteen. “Would you mind coming with me to the back?”

“Morning,” he welcomed her and followed to the storage room behind the canteen.

The smell there was overwhelming but the woman sifted through all the rotten food as if not noticing. Iago stayed a bit farther away, watching as she picked the most rotten pieces and brought them to him. Each was worse than the one before.

He shaped them without question, putting the fresh vegetables into a basket and meat into the cleanest bucket he’d ever seen. It was strange from where they found enough water to scrub it clean like this but it meant they had enough to spare for now.

Oh right, it had rained yesterday. He remembered hearing about it from the people as he went to take his share of food in the evening. Some had even proclaimed it was his doing but he got away from the canteen before they could approach him.

It had been quite lucky but he doubted he would be able to evade them forever.

“This is so nice!” Urri exclaimed, picking up a cabbage head and rolling it in her fingers. “I’m certain I can make something great from it. I’m so glad you came to us!”

“It’s nothing,” he answered with a shadow of a smile.

“No, it’s not nothing!” she shouted out, her face scrunching up in anger. “Without you we’d be eating what’s inside there! I shall make something especially for you to thank for saving us from getting a deadly food poisoning!”

This was going too far once more. It was just so easy. He didn’t even had to do anything to become a special existence, someone above everyone else. “Please don’t. Everyone is doing what they can and this is my share. It’s nothing exceptional.”

“But no one else can do what you do!”

“Well, I can’t cook like you. I’d be eating bare vegetables or coals if I were left to my own devices,” he said, lying with a straight face. He wasn’t a genius cook, but he had survived long enough to have the basic skills.

The words had hit the mark and the cook’s smile reached from ear to ear. It reminded him of his mother those few times he’d seen her so happy she forgot her sickness and that there was no food on the table. She close to shone with the radiance of her smile.

And it had been brought by a lie just like this. He’d said a vendor had hired him to help carry the wares every morning while in truth he’d signed up to work in the mines. His conscience had griped at him about the lie all until the moment he’d seen that smile, it became all worth it in an instant.

Just like now. This was on a much smaller scale, but happiness was closely connected with the lack of truth. As long as one kept his knowledge to himself, he could make those around him feel so much better.

Escaping annoying situations in the process. He was back to being a normal survivor in the eyes of the cook, at least for the moment. Now only the rest of the thirty something survivors left…

A scary thought that followed him back to the canteen. The cook had promised to be swift in making breakfast so there was no point in leaving. Not that he had anything to do in his room. He was sick and tired of reading books. If he didn’t have to pick one in his life, it would still be too soon.

Finding a place in the corner closest to the canteen, he watched the people start to trickle in. It was still quite early but all chatted animatedly, watching the cook work with excitement. Most likely they still couldn’t believe they had real food to eat.

It brought a certain feeling of pride that he did his best to quell down. It would be just too ironical if after gaining the ability to shape, he’d become like all those people he’d loathed all his life. Just too perfect.

As he sat lost in his thoughts, a crying from down the table reached his ears. He turned to see a woman with dark brown hair weeping in her arms. Other survivors were petting her back or watching with helpless but grim expressions.

“This would have never happened had Elecar been with us…” a grey haired man said in what Iago could only conclude was anger. What a pointless emotion against a dead man.

“Elecar?” one of the younger people asked.

The old man glared at him as if insulted to the bottom of his heart. “He was the man that kept the city together as it was falling apart from the seams! He’s a true hero that saved so many people, no one could count them all! It was a man with a vision, one that everyone knew was working on a way to protect the city…”

This was too much. Hero of the ages? Protector of all? Iago couldn’t stand such nonsense. “Protect the city, all right,” he laughed with mockery. “If everyone’s dead, nobody needs saving. What a great man!”

“What trash are you spouting?” the old man shouted out, raising from his seat with thunder in his eyes. “How dare yo-”

“Dare what? Laugh at you glorifying the man that destroyed the world? I sure see no reason why I shouldn’t.”

It didn’t seem like the man had paid any attention to his words. Instead he was growing redder by the moment, his nostrils flaring like a bull’s. “You punk, who do you think you are to sully Elecar’s name like that? He was a man tha-”

“Was,” Iago said, cutting into the tirade. “He might have been a man of note at some point but now he’s just the cretin that killed everything for his own amusement. The fool didn’t even bother surviving himself.”

“Is that true?”

“He died?”

“Are you certain?”

People started asking one over another, their eyes focused on Iago alone. What was that about him not acting special? He didn’t even need any powers to become a centre of attention. It had to be a talent of its own.

The old man alone didn’t join in the questioning. He waited for the voices to trickle away before walking towards Iago. “Who told you that?”

“Nobody. I had the misfortune of seeing it myself,” he answered, turning away from the old man. It wasn’t something he was fond of remembering, those days right before and after the Scourge. All that misery, broken bones and powers he never imagined to have. Ones he didn’t deserve to have.

“What were you doing around Elecar?”

“Ever heard of Kallum? I studied under him. Us, students, were tasked with bringing food to that man, who was so busy researching, he didn’t have time for things like eating or sleeping. If only we hadn’t bothered… But no, teacher told us and we helped him. All to in the end find out his mind created this whole destruction.”

“Who was Kallum to Elecar?”

“Some old friend. They never really talked about it.”

“What can you say of him, Elecar I mean?”

Iago smiled tiredly, the conversation having went past the length where he could be bothered to pay attention. It made him remember things he did not want to… But he had started it, so it was only fair if he finished instead of running away. “He was a man twisted by his past. There was warmth and genuine goodness in him, but at times you could see the fury simmering within. He kept it hidden, but sometimes it broke out to scorch everything in its path.”

“You… you did know him…” the man breathed out in a whisper, his face turning pale. He sat down with the heaviness of the whole world on his shoulders, left hand holding up the head against the table. “So, he really did do it? He’s the one to blame for… for all this?”

In answer, Iago nodded. The man saw the gesture and to everyone’s surprise, tears appeared in his eyes. There was no sound, no hiccups, just silent drops trailing down his wizened face.

That genuine sorrow was more than Iago could take. His words had been true but he didn’t have to tell them. That knowledge had been his own to bear. Why did he have to go off and taint this grey haired man’s memories? He might not live long in this kind of world, but he was still alive. There had been no reason to hurt him like this.

Iago stood up and without a glance back left the canteen. People tried to ask him questions but he ignored them all and left for the outside. Walking, not thinking, he reached his family’s old house but the familiar building brought no comfort. He had abandoned his family, all of them dying while he survived.

He’d done all he could to save them so their demise couldn’t be his fault. It wasn’t and yet he saw his faults everywhere around him. If he had been better, if he had been stronger… Had he been less full of himself, certain he knew what was for the best, it might have ended different.

That deal with Kallum… Why did he make it? Was his desperation that deep? Ha, even back then he had known he was a shitty brother. It was better to leave his family in the hands of a stranger than keep on trying to take care of it himself, failing again and again.

Only he had never noticed what conceit it was. They should have had a choice in it all. Then maybe he’d have shared their last moments together, instead of having to live alone in this mad city.

And he was certain they would have chosen that. None of them would have let him go off and sacrifice himself… It was hilarious how by sacrificing himself, he managed to become the only one that survived. What twisted and sick this world was…

He punched the wall of his old room and it crumbled under his fingers. Jagged pieces fell on his feet and he laughed. Perfect, just perfect. A kick there, punch there and the cracks in the building spread like water over dry land.

Soon it was falling on him, instincts forcing the currents to shape them into dust. That pain, the ravaging of his body by the Energies, woke him from the trance and he saw his old house gone. There hadn’t been much to begin with, couple walls and bits of broken furniture, but now there was nothing. Dust settled in lazy twirls on an empty slot in the street.

What did it matter anyway. It wasn’t like anyone would want to live here, him included. Too many memories that should stay folded and thrust into the deepest recesses of his mind, lost for all eternity.

Not looking back, he walked away from his old home and towards the distant sounds of people working. Simply going through them would prove a good enough distraction until he reached his room and could fall asleep, forgetting today like so many others.

His stomach growled in protest at such a plan, reminding him that his last meal was a whole day back. It was somewhat disappointing but he was sure, there were still some old sausages left from their journey. He had taken the packs to his place, and Shea like always didn’t bother to protest.

As he was passing through a bunch of people working on restoring a house into liveable quarters, someone noticed him. It was a huge man, similar to the one that had challenged him in the canteen. Apparently, the trait ran in the family.

“Hey, pretty boy! Where do you think you’re going?”

A title he’d heard often enough in his previous life but after the Scourge, it had gone away. He’d changed too much for anyone to see him as the gentle featured youth with an air of pretend importance around him.

On top of that, there was the problem of his current status. It didn’t take long for the rest of people to start whispering, “He’s a shaper! You..! To a shaper! Shaper... He’s a shaper!” They tried to keep their voices low but each single one reached his ears, and he frowned. Not again.

Even the big man’s face lost a bit of colour as he looked around for a way out. Everyone knew the punishment for disrespect was a hanging. It was so widely understood that even newly born babes didn’t dare to start crying if any shapers were around.

But to Iago’s relief the big man wasn’t cowered. A look of panic flashed through his eyes but it was gone as soon as it came and the man faced him with a resolute expression, muscles taut and ready to jump to action.

No need for that, whatsoever. Iago gave a self-mocking smile to the man. “Is that how I look? This environment must be still too tame for me.”

The man shifted on his feet, clearly thrown off-balance. “It’s not... not that… You’re a man an.. and wear earrings!”

“Oh…” That surprised Iago. His hand rose on its own to touch the ornament in his left ear, feeling the unfamiliar surface of it. He had all but forgotten of its existence. “It’s a memento, a friend gave it to me with his dying wish.”

No one opened their mouths to ask anything, but he could see the curiosity shining in their eyes. Well, it wasn’t a secret or anything. “He wanted for me to see the world without being shackled to my past, taste what fresh air is like.” After that confession, he gave them all a hard stare. “So, don’t even bother trying to put new shackles of superiority on me. I don’t care if I’m a shaper.”

After that he turned around and was about to walk away, but the big man’s voice stopped him. “If you don’t want special treatment, then come help me move these stones. Everyone else is working.”

Iago had doubts about that ‘everyone’ but there was truth in those words. It would be the simplest to blend in if he just joined the rest of the survivors in their everyday jobs. That wouldn’t be too hard, sleep could wait another twelve hours.

“As you wish,” he murmured and pushing his sleeves up, came to stand before the man. He stared at him with the same dumbfounded expression as the rest of the crowd, though, a few were slower and were still throwing the big man looks filled with horror. “Are we going to stand here for the rest of the day, or do you plan to work?”

“Work,” the man huffed and went inside the building. Iago followed suit, taking in the walls that had no cracks in them. They stood as strong and unmarked as the day they were built.

It was quite out of place compared to the ceiling and upper floors lying before his feet. Most of them, anyway. A portion had been moved away, only white dust betraying that something had been there before.

“What’s your name?” Iago asked the man as he bent to pick up one of the larger stones.

“Evic, and you?”

“Iago.”

No more words were exchanged after that as they began carrying out the rubble. More than half the room was filled with it, broken staircase only adding to the mix.

The stones weighted heavy in Iago’s hands, but he found the physical labour reassuring. This familiar feeling of straining muscles, sweat drenching your back and sun beating mercilessly… Out of habit, his mind shut away. At some point the work will be over, and thinking about how hard it is only made the wait worse. The end would come whether he thought of it or not, simple as that.

One stone after another, he took them all out. It didn’t matter how heavy or misshapen they were. Each time he moved them, there were fewer left. That was what mattered.

At some point the break was held and water passed over, so he drank. No one came to talk to him and soon he returned to work. There were still half the room to clean up. Hopefully, nobody expected for it to be finished by today or it would be a very long night.

“That’s enough,” Evic said, making Iago stop in his tracks.

He stayed still, letting his brain process the words. Enough… That meant it was over. No work through the whole night. A heavy sigh left his lips and he yawned like a man waking up from a long dream. “Is that so..?” he murmured, carefully stretching his muscles to see how much it hurt.

Somewhat but not too bad. In his old life, he’d have called this one of the better jobs. If allowed, he’d have returned here for more as long as the pay wasn’t below disgustingly low.

“You worked like you knew what you were doing,” the big man noted.

Iago nodded his way. “I’ve done a share of odd jobs in my life. Cleaning up crumbled houses is nothing new to me.”

“Are you certain you’re a shaper?”

He burst out laughing at that. “Pretty sure. But you’re right in a way,” Iago said, cleaning his hands on his clothes. It helped little as they were already white from all the dust. “I wasn’t always one. It’s more of a recent development.”

Evic grunted at that. “No wonder you don’t like all the attention.”

“I suppose so… Well, I’m off to take a rest.”

“And the dinner?”

Iago didn’t hold back the curse that shot from his lips. He was exhausted enough and without any more shaping. It would be entering dangerous waters, trying to shape with his loose concentration. One wrong move…

No, it wasn’t a choice. He’d promised to take care of the food problem and that was that. It would turn his reputation to tatters if he went against his word. Everyone would have their fears ascertained that, in truth, he was just another shaper like all the rest, doing whatever he wanted. .

Evic gave him a weird look but Iago ignored him, and walked towards the canteen. It wouldn’t take long and he would actually get to eat. His stomach had already passed the hungry state and had turned numb. Until it got back to feeling hungry with a vengeance.

Cook welcomed him with a bright smile and he forced out something of a kind. It must have been believable enough since she didn’t question him. Good, but now there two buckets filled with rotting food before him, the smell making his insides clench in disgust.

He stretched his hand forward and rested it upon foul smelling meat. The currents jumped at his call, scrambling through his body without a care for damage inflicted. Pain forced itself onto his mind, screaming for attention and fraying his concentration.

But that was normal. He focused the Energies before his hand and willed them to shape the world to his liking. They complied with ease, eager to please as they rushed out. It was a wondrous transformation that the food before him was going through but he kept his mind on the currents. Channelling those things through his fragile human body…

It was over. He locked himself off and released the titbits of Energies still running through his body. A shudder ran through him from losing all that power with relief following in step. No severe damage suffered. It was a success.

Cook chattered with joy and he nodded, listening with one ear. It was time to return to the canteen. The prospect didn’t make him feel overjoyed but eating was an important part of life. If there was a way for him to save his few remaining supplies, he had to take it.

Voices quietened as he entered but no one challenged him directly, and that was just as well. He was too tired to match wits with anyone at the moment. This last month had spoiled him with plenty of sleep, enough food and lack of any danger. His old instincts had burrowed deep into the ground, away from his easy reach.

It should have brought happiness, life was better off here in a way, but all he felt was weariness. It was far too long since he was faced with anything remotely threatening and he was no longer certain he’d be up to the challenge. Easy life bred weakness in people, and without notice he’d joined in the club.

Food came later, some broth. It tasted well and was fulfilling so he didn’t bother eating the extra food, but rather took it with him. Scorpius must be starving too.

Inside the room, he saw the nosferatu was already gone. Whatever. He put the food on the table and dropped into the bed. It creaked from his weight but he ignored its complaints. Sleep took him before he had even fully closed his eyes.

*****

Author's Note:

Thank you for reading! Comments, opinions and reviews are very welcome!